A
66-year-old downtown attorney could be sentenced to as much as seven years in
prison if convicted on elder abuse and conspiracy charges, a prosecutor said
yesterday as a preliminary hearing in the case began.

Beatrice
Lawson is accused of helping two Jordanian immigrants swindle an 85-year-old
woman out of $1.3 million. The two, brothers Ismat and Nashat Sabha, pled
guilty in May, paying over $1 million in restitution and agreeing to go to Mexico
and renounce their U.S.
citizenship.

Special
Agent John Rocha of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement testified yesterday
in the downtown courtroom of Judge Norman Tarle that his investigation began
after a $100,00 check was seized at a FedEx depot in Tennessee.
The check, bound for Amman,
Jordan,
was discovered in a routine customs inspection, Rocha said.

Because
it was endorsed, it was a negotiable instrument which should have been
declared, the investigator explained.

He
said the check led him to an account opened by the Sabha brothers with money
obtained from Anne Kelly. When asked to explain the source of the funds, Ismat
Sabha described Kelly as an “investor,” Rocha testified.

His
investigation, the agent said, uncovered numerous instances of suspicious
activity on accounts belonging to Kelly, including almost daily maximum-amount
ATM withdrawals and Costco shopping sprees. Those activities had already caused
bank officials to freeze several accounts, Rocha explained.

Rocha
testified that he was told by Kelly’s financial adviser that the spending was
inconsistent with Kelly’s lifestyle. The adviser described Kelly as a “very
secretive and very stingy” woman of extremely frugal habits, the investigator
said.

Lawson,
Rocha testified, sought to intervene on at least two occasions after bank
officials froze accounts or declined to execute wire transfers to Amman.
The investigator said he was told by a brokerage branch manager that the
manager was surprised to get a call from Lawson, representing herself as
Kelly’s attorney.

Kelly
had previously declined to identify her lawyer to the manager, Rocha explained,
but said the attorney was located in Beverly
Hills and offered to get in
touch with “him.” Lawson’s office is in the 3500 block of Wilshire
Boulevard.

The
manager, Rocha said, told him Lawson accompanied Kelly to the branch in October
of 2002 to close her accounts. Though the manager explained in detail the
reasons for his suspicions, Lawson assured him Kelly was “okay” and just
“wanted to spend the money any way she felt,” Rocha testified.

The
manager told him Lawson intervened whenever he sought to pose questions
directly to Kelly, even on one occasion pulling Kelly away from him, Rocha
said. The elderly woman seemed “sedated” and it was “extremely clear to him
that she was having some confusion and was not clear,” Rocha said he was told.

Preliminary
hearing testimony in the case is to continue this afternoon. Deputy District
Attorney Susan Powers said she plans to call a doctor who will testify about
Kelly’s mental condition as well as a probate attorney who represented the
conservator appointed for her after bank officials relayed their suspicions to
a county social services agency.

According
to court records, Kelly suffers from dementia. Rocha said her financial adviser
told him she had investments of over $2 million before she was victimized.

Lawson,
who was admitted to practice in 1975 but according to State Bar records served
a three-month suspension in 1995, is free on her own recognizance. She is
represented by attorney James P. Cooper III.

Under
the terms of their plea agreement, the Sabha brothers agreed to go to Mexico
and renounce their U.S.
citizenship in return for suspension of seven-year prison sentences. Officials
with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the renunciation was carried
out at the U.S.
consulate in Tijuana
and the two then returned to Jordan.

Two
other defendants—Nashat Sabha’s wife, Guadalupe Rojo Sabha, and Anita
McKinnon—also entered guilty pleas earlier this month. McKinnon, who is four
years older than Kelly, was accused of aiding the Sabhas but under the plea
bargains was also to receive restitution, as was another elderly victim, Norah
Smith.

A
sixth defendant is believed to be in hiding in Jordan,
customs officials said.

In
a declaration in the court file detailing his investigation, Rocha asserted
that Lawson had previously represented Nashat Sabha and became involved in the
effort to swindle Kelly in August of 2002 after the suspicions of bank
officials were aroused by Kelly’s attempt to wire $450,000 from one of her
accounts to a Sabha relative in Jordan.

When
county social workers first were notified by bank officials about their
suspicions, Lawson wrote a letter assuring them Kelly had the capacity to
manager her own affairs, Rocha’s declaration said, adding that Lawson’s intervention
succeeded in convincing a social worker to close the agency’s initial inquiry.

Rocha also reported telephone conversations
with the defendant who is believed to be hiding in Jordan in which the man, a nephew of Ismat Sabha,
said his uncle had repeatedly “told him to run Anne Kelly over with his car and
make it look like an accident.” The nephew said he made at least one such
attempt before being deported in 2003, Rocha asserted.